


Things You See In A Graveyard

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Because You're About To Go On A Feels Trip, Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Character Study, Dramatic Haircutting, Drug Use, Emotionally Neglectful Parent, Gen, Hallucinations, Not All Ghosts Come From The Dead, Spoilers for Episode 16 of Campaign 2, Y'all Have Your Signed Permission Slips?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-29 23:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14483346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: “What happens if you have a childhood, but it’s barely a childhood, ‘cause it was supposed to be someone else’s childhood, but it was you instead? Is that a childhood?” The thought comes into her head and right out her mouth. Shit. She really doesn’t like this drug. She’s sticking to alcohol from now on. Being drunk only makes her flirty and want to punch stuff, it doesn’t make her see things or say deeply personal shit.Molly’s looking at her, eyes wide. “What happened to you?”Beau looks away from Molly’s incredulous concern and into the mists and time does… something. Maybe it slows down. Maybe her thoughts speed up. She sees memories play out in the fog, among the graves, and that’s all too symbolic, isn’t it?





	Things You See In A Graveyard

**Author's Note:**

> You knew I had to do my own spin on the drug trip/graveyard scene, right folks? That exchange was just too good to pass up. I had Feelings and now you have to have them too. I don't make the rules.

“I don’t think I like this.”

That’s a lie. Beau _knows_ she doesn’t like this drug, doesn’t like how it makes the inside of her head feel, like a large, empty cavern where her own tiny thoughts are echoing around. But she’ll be damned if she lets Molly know she’s freaking out. Beau looks at the swirling mists around her feet and the fog surrounding her and tries not to shiver. Her eyes immediately search out the only source of color.

Molly is grinning, because of course he is, his lavender skin and tattoos fairly glowing in the white and gray mists that surround him. His eyes are bright, shining with the thrill of a new experience. Beau realizes a lot of experiences would be new to him, and nearly envies that childlike wonder. Maybe someone should bury _her_ in the ground and she could forget everything too, start all over again.

“C’mon! Let’s go find a graveyard!” Molly says excitedly, and grabs her hand, pulling her along.

Shit. Had she said the whole burying thing out loud? She didn’t think she had. Could Molly hear her thoughts? That wasn’t a thing he could do, right? It couldn’t be. If Molly could hear her thoughts he would have been able to hear all her thoughts about Yasha and he would have definitely had things to say about that.

Yasha. It’s too bad Yasha isn’t here. Beau remembers yelling after Yasha, asking her where she goes. Fuck. She had been trying to be so cool about Yasha leaving all the time, trying not to be, well, like Nott, who was always asking Yasha questions. Beau definitely didn’t want to annoy Yasha, didn’t want the woman to look at her like—

The thought gets away from her, vanishes into the mists. Beau lets it go. She can vaguely hear Fjord and Jester having a conversation from somewhere behind her. Beau can’t make out the words. Jester’s voice is a bright, darting thing, like a hummingbird. Fjord’s voice is the murmur of the ocean at low tide at midnight, dark water sliding over sand.

“Doing all right back there?” Molly asks without turning around. His voice is sharp, but a friendly sort of sharp. It doesn’t cut her. It’s the difference between a sword used to protect her and a sword used _against_ her.

Beau remembers the black tears running down Yasha’s face as the barbarian had swung the sword at her. Molly had used his own powers against Yasha. To protect _her_.

“Oh yeah, just fine, this is great,” Beau says. Her voice is as dull as stones in a wall. Can’t let Molly know she’d rather just sit down and close her eyes until this damn drug wears off. Can’t let him know that it feels like his hand is the only thing keeping her from getting lost in the fog surrounding her. Showing vulnerability only gets you hurt.

Beau can just make out the outlines of gravestones and mausoleums if she squints through the fog. Shapes and shadows keep passing by her in the mists and she’s exhausted from flinching away from them, and mad at herself for being scared. Molly just keeps looking around, grinning. Gods, he’s enjoying himself. How can anyone _like_ this?

“It just occurred to me! I didn’t have a childhood!” Molly suddenly proclaims. He sounds excited by the revelation. “I never said that to anyone before!”

“What happens if you have a childhood, but it’s barely a childhood, ‘cause it was supposed to be someone else’s childhood, but it was you instead? Is that a childhood?” The thought comes into her head and right out her mouth. Shit. She _really_ doesn’t like this drug. She’s sticking to alcohol from now on. Being drunk only makes her flirty and want to punch stuff, it doesn’t make her see things or say deeply personal shit.

Molly’s looking at her, eyes wide. “What _happened_ to you?”

Beau looks away from Molly’s incredulous concern and into the mists and time does… something. Maybe it slows down. Maybe her thoughts speed up. She sees memories play out in the fog, among the graves, and that’s all too symbolic, isn’t it?

_Beau is five when she hits someone for the first time. The mayor’s son, a boy a year older than her and at least an inch taller, laughs at her for having a “boy’s” name. Beau doesn’t know why having a boy’s name is funny, or why him laughing at her makes her so angry. She bloodies his nose and makes him cry, and her father is furious at her “unladylike” behavior. It’s the first time he yells at her for that. It won’t be the last._

_Beau is six, a week away from being seven, and sitting at the dining room table, eating dinner with her parents. When her mother asks her what she wants for her birthday, Beau asks for a little brother to play with. Her mother suddenly bursting into tears scares her much more than her father yelling at her to go to her room. Beau cries alone for nearly an hour before her mother comes in and explains to Beau that she can’t have any more children, and that it makes her and her father sad sometimes. Beau doesn’t ask any questions, because she doesn’t want to make her mother cry again. She apologizes to her mother, who hugs her. When she apologizes to her father, he doesn’t say anything at all, just looks at her like his unhappiness is her fault. Beau is already used to that look._

_Beau is ten, and her mother is brushing her hair. Beau both loves and hates having her hair brushed. She loves being with her mother, but her hair is so long and brushing it takes forever and it’s hard for her to sit still. The lace around the collar of her dress itches and Beau squirms. She asks her mother why she has to wear stupid itchy dresses and why her hair has to be so long. Her mother tells her it’s because her father wants her to look like “a proper lady,”Beau doesn’t understand why that matters, when her father hardly looks at her at all._

_Beau is twelve when she stops answering her father’s questions about how her studies are going. He doesn’t look at her when she speaks anyway, and he never praises her when she does well, just gets angry when she’s doing poorly. He calls her insolent and willful when she won’t answer him, and she’s sent to her room without finishing dinner. This goes on for a week before her father gives up. All family meals afterwards are spent in silence._

_Beau is fifteen when the mayor’s son gets her alone in a hallway and tries to feel her up. Beau at fifteen is much stronger than Beau at five. This time she doesn’t just bloody his nose, she breaks it. Her father doesn’t listen to her when she tries to explain herself, he is too busy yelling about how she’s bringing shame onto the family by brawling like some common boy on the street. She yells back that she thought that would make him happy, because hadn’t he always wanted a son instead of her? Her father stares at her like he is seeing her for the first time and Beau stares back, fists still clenched and bloody. He doesn’t say anything to her, but he doesn’t have to. Beau knows she’s right. She’s always known._

_Beau is fifteen and her hands are still bloody as she runs to her bedroom. She is fifteen and sees herself reflected in the mirror, hair cascading over her shoulders like a waterfall and she can’t change who she is. She’s fifteen and she’s been a disappointment since she was born so why should she care what her father wants? She’s fifteen and she gathers her hair in one hand and picks up the scissors with the other and her childhood falls away with her hair and she looks in the mirror—_

The mists themselves have become a mirror, or at least that’s what  Beau thinks at first, but no. The face she is looking at is not quite hers, but it’s close. The jaw is a little more square, the cheekbones a little less sharp. It’s a face that looks like it would be used to smiling more than Beau’s own face is.

Beau knows, in the deep down way that one knows things in dreams (or while high, she supposes) that she’s looking at a ghost, but not the kind that comes from someone dying. This is the son her parents never had, the person who her father had wished she had been born as. This was who she had replaced, the person whose childhood hadn’t fit her at all. He would have worn it much better, would have gotten a father who looked him in the eye, who would have been proud of him, who would have smiled.

“I’m sorry,” Beau whispers, and she doesn’t even know what she is apologizing for. For taking what wasn’t hers, maybe. Except it _is_ hers now, this awful memory of childhood, just another layer in the wall she’s built to keep everyone out, just another thing that has altered the shape of her heart.

The ghost of the person who never was passes through Beau and she wraps her arms around herself, shivering, and she closes her eyes.

“Beau?” Something draped around her, something large that smells like incense and old blood and that tea that Molly always drinks that tastes like a campfire smells. “Hey, you okay in there?”

Beau opens her eyes and looks around. All the swirling mists and strange shapes are gone and all she sees now are old gravestones and Molly, who’s looking at her with both curiosity and concern. He’s not wearing his coat. She’s wearing his coat. Her thoughts feel as tired as the rest of her, coming to her slowly. She should give the coat back. In a minute.

“You looked really far away,” Molly was saying. “See anything interesting? Any ghosts?”

Beau closes her eyes for a moment, and shakes her head. “Nah,” she lies. “I didn’t see anything at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Raise your hand if you know what the title of the fic is from! Another instance of my working title becoming the permanent one.
> 
> And yes, I know *technically* that conversation between Molly and Beau happened *after* the drug wore off, but narrative license and what have you.
> 
> I'm angel-ascending over on Tumblr if you want to stop in and say hi!


End file.
